So this is it. The end. El fin. The closing remarks. The final hoorah you might say. I’m in the home stretch with one more essay to turn in and my last final tomorrow, my time here in Madrid is coming to a close. When I first signed up for this course I thought, “ok awesome, at least now I’ll …

So as the semester is winding down (I seriously don’t know how there is only one more week of classes?!) we’ve been asked to make a post about tips for future students and travelers to our abroad site. So, I present to you, Maggie Boreham’s first ever “Guide for an Idiot Abroad: Madrid Edition” Hi – so you’re thinking about …

As things wrap up this semester, I suppose we’re all doing a lot of reflection and thinking especially hard about what studying abroad has meant to us and what it will mean going forward. I certainly am. When I go home in about a week, it won’t only be the end of a semester in Spain. It will be the …

Madrid is a tough nut to crack. I’m not sure how clear it’s been over the course of this semester’s blog posts, but Madrid is not my favorite place in the world. A friend recently described this place as somewhere that she enjoys ‘point A’ and/or ‘point B’, but rarely the journey between them. I feel the same. New York …

So this semester has definitely been an interesting one. I’ve realized a lot about myself and most importantly, realized that I’m not as adaptable as I had previously believed. I love travel and always have loved experiencing new cultures and meeting new people…. Until now. I’ve realized that I’m not a cuttlefish. I know what you’re thinking, “Maggie, clearly …

When I left San Francisco on a flight to London exactly ten months ago—to the day—I thought I knew what to expect. I thought I was ready to shed my Americanness and become the European I had always wanted to be. I thought I would dread returning to the United States for the year and a half it’s going to …

Honestly… I’ve messed up a lot in this city: from missing a flight, to breaking my phone (twice), to getting lost alone in the city, to accidentally ordering a pile of squid instead of a side of mushrooms, to booking my train home for the wrong day, trying to speak to Germans in (horrible) Spanish, getting my phone stolen, travelling …

Travelling has almost always gone smoothly for me. More than smoothly, in fact. I’ve been away from home for nearly 11 months now, and rarely has anything not gone as planned, or even as scheduled. That being said… everyone has some travel horror story and I certainly have mine. I won’t lie, this one time was stressful and really upsetting …

So I need to address something. It’s been on my mind for quite some time interrupting my thoughts, and no I’m not talking about Adele’s new smash hit Hello. I’m talking about the consistent disgruntled rumblings of my stomach. The moans and groans of my inner piping as it pleads with me to please, for the love of all things …

When it came to choosing my living situation in Madrid, months before actually arriving, I gave no thought to my choice. I’m going to Spain to work on my Spanish, I thought, so obviously I’m going to choose a homestay. The possibility of living in an apartment never even crossed my mind. I also made the assumption that the majority …

As I’ve said plenty of times before on this blog, Spain is a country built on contradiction. Almost nothing is what you would expect—sometimes charmingly so, and sometimes in the most frustrating of ways. And sometimes the unexpected is simply important to observe. Eye-opening even. I displace the air as I walk, a blunt yet thoughtful book of poetry by Marjorie …

“I have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards” is perhaps the most powerful quote, in my opinion from George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. The story, told from the perspective of none other than Orwell himself, recounts his experience as a soldier fighting during the Spanish Civil War. He fought for the …

I have to admit that when I first made the trek (via metro of course) out to Madrid’s Matadero… I was not thrilled. It was midterms week so I had two essays and a test the following day. Yet, my internship seminar was taking a class trip to some place called Matadero Madrid to ride bikes? I was less than …

You already know about my love for the most wonderful of Spanish traditions, the menú del día, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. Less than €10 and you get more food than you can finish plus a glass of wine and a coffee to top things off. I partake almost daily, and my favorite place to indulge is …

So I think that New York has spoiled me. Actually, I know that New York has spoiled me. Growing up in the ‘burbs of Dallas, Texas, my exposure included Nike shorts and football season shirts (cowboy hats/boots were reserved for special events… such as prom)—when I came to the big city, it was immediately clear that everything I knew was, …